"Cutty, I'd like to curl up in some corner and cry, gratefully. I didn't

know there were such men. I just don't know what to do. It isn't as

if you were asking me to be your wife. And as you say, I can't accept

money. There is a pride in me that rejects the whole thing; but it may

be the same fool pride that has cut away my friends. I ought to fall on

your neck with joy: and here I am trying to look round corners! You

are my father's friend, my mother's, mine. Why shouldn't I accept the

proposition? You are alone, too. You have a perfect right to do as you

please with your money, and I have an equally perfect right to accept

your gifts. We are all afraid of the world, aren't we? That's probably

at the bottom of my doddering. Cutty, what is love?" she broke off,

whimsically.

"Looking into mirrors and hunting for specks," he answered, readily.

"I mean seriously."

"So do I. Before I went round to the stage entrance to take your mother

out to supper I used to preen an hour before the mirror. My collar, my

cravat, my hair, the nap on my stovepipe, my gloves--terrible things!

And what happened? Your dad, dressed in his office clothes, came along

like a cyclone, walked all over my toes, and swooped up your mother

right from under my nose. Now just look the proposition over from all

angles. Think of yourself; let the old world go hang. They'll call

it alimony. In a year or so you'll be free; and some chap like Tommy

Conover will come along, and bang! You'll know all about love. Here's

old Brooklyn Bridge. I'll see you to the elevator. All nonsense that you

should have the least hesitance."

Fifteen minutes later he was striding along Park Row. By the swing of

his stride any onlooker would have believed that Cutty was in a hurry to

arrive somewhere. Instead, one was only walking. Suddenly he stopped in

the middle of the sidewalk with the two currents of pedestrians flowing

on each side of him, as a man might stop who saw some wonderful cloud

effect. But there was nothing ecstatical in his expression; on the

contrary, there was a species of bewildered terror. The psychology of

all his recent actions had in a flash become vividly clear.

An unbelievable catastrophe had overtaken him. He loved Kitty, loved her

with an intense, shielding passion, quite unlike that which he had given

her mother. Such a thing could happen! He offered not the least combat;

the revelation was too smashing to admit of any doubt. It was not

a recrudescence of his love for Molly, stirred into action by the

association with Molly's daughter. He wanted Kitty for himself, wanted

her with every fibre in his body, fiercely. And never could he tell

her--now.




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